TOPIC: Networking Chatrooms?

Say it's the eleventh hour, you need advice or just hypothetical reasoning after you've banged your head against a problem.

Does anyone know of a live chat forum for networking professionals?

I know Cisco provides pretty near "realtime" support, but they get awfully salty when they find out you stated "down conditions" to get immediate attention in a crisis and they find out it is "net new" configuration. (I know, lol)

My exact problem is migrating nodes from 1 network to another in real time which involves 1 router, two disparate networks and minimal configuration/downtime, and no technical folks on the remote node's end!

Good luck, huh? Hahaaa!

A scapegoat is often as welcome as a solution...never memorize what you can look up.

Yeah, ya know...I usually bounce out to the remote end and USUALLY know of an internal switch or two to ping from, otherwise I can extended ping and source from an internal address. (I scan their network twice daily to keep records of IPs)

My remote IT contact is usually a nurse (which is always cool...lol) or a C-level officer and although they are easy to guide, I don't always want them involved cause they usually too inquisitive. Aside from the fact that I directly affect their bottom line with downtime.

PM...do all have AIM, does IRC integrate to AIM?

Ever considered writing a chatroom into Firewall.cx?

Most of my friends know nothing of networking, 1 is being mentored by me...lol. In work it is me alone (at Corporate HQ) and maybe 5 or 6 others spread out across the whole company and country! None are at the sites I am migrating. I'm almost on first name basis with some of the Cisco Systems CCIEs, ha! As you can see, the pressure on me is pretty significant. Downtime also equals $$$!

A scapegoat is often as welcome as a solution...never memorize what you can look up.

Actually the chatroom idea came up a couple of times before if I recall. Its an idea to keep in mind, though right now Chris is actually slogging over lowering the page load times and making everything run faster.. as you know theres already loads of little goodies that came in with the PHPnuke content management system.. they probably have a Java chat module as well.

First name basis with CCIE's ? Point some of them to the site so I can stop bluffing on some of my answers in the forums hehehe